I honestly think it's going to be at LEAST ten years before they stop making content for the game. However, I predict them finishing up the the "main" storylines well before then - Sargeras stuff, Old Gods stuff, etc etc. My gut says that all those things will come to end right around the time Titan is hitting the shelves. After all, if Titan is the raging success we're all hoping it to be, they'll be effectively killing off wow. I think they'd like to wrap up the bigger parts of the game while there's still a big audience around to appreciate it. It'd suck if it's 2020 and there's still no Sargeras raid and we're still getting "You are not prepared," quips. Sometimes you just gotta let things end.

That said, my guess is they'll keep doing $10-15 DLC "mini-expansions" for quite a while after the overarching story is complete. Nothing that raises the level cap or really adds any new zones, but more personalized stuff. Class-specific stuff, maybe even profession-specific. Lots of cosmetic stuff too. That'd be kinda nifty, at least in my opinion.

Warcraft 4. Doesn't matter if they make it the best game in history and blowjob level of enjoyment, people will bitch and moan until the forum servers burn to a crisp. By now warcraft is basicly on the same nostalgia level as vanilla WoW. So if it happen, it will basicly be Diablo 3 whining and bitching all over again.
I don't think Blizz wants that.

I disagree. For example, people had high expectations of Starcraft 2... and most were reached. Sure, there's a few who complained, there's always a few, but most of the people loved Starcraft 2 and now love Heart of the Swarm. If anything, most complains, when they appear, are about balance and about Reynor forgetting about Fenix. That's really it. So allow me to say that if Blizzard does it similar to how they did it for Starcraft, the game will be a huge success.

When WoW's last expansion/major patch will come out, and its popularity will die down, I think it will rather become this "niche" MMO that will stick around for its addicts, will get tweaked around from time to time for them, and will remain like this as long as it brings more money that it requires to maintain.

Incidentally, the quality of player interaction will improve dramatically.

It's time to level up and quit your newbie ways
You need to go outside and get some new V-rays
A fresh breath of air will help you talk again
Inhale, exhale, feel the Oxygen
- Woodman

The amount of Doomsday posts occurring lately is beyond old. I question the intelligence of those that seriously say things like this:

"I'm pretty sure after the spike, blizzard is ready to end World of Warcraft to start on something fresh and new."

...and there are thousands that honestly think this. Games lose people, it happens. The population playing this game still greatly surpasses that of most MMO's out there. Why would Blizzard execute a producing Cash Cow over something small comparatively? The game will continue on, as it has for the past (nearly) 9 years, through all of the people that said it was going to die and that every new title coming out was a "wow killer". Blizzard would more than likely continue to put effort into development if only 1million subscribers were active, obviously with less money coming in they would have cutbacks... but that's kind of to be expected.

There's still much more, story-wise to expand upon. Players come back for new expansions, and then fall off when they've accomplished what they've wanted to. How have people continued to learn nothing from the past 8 years of this? If WoW dies in a few years, then it dies. It's been having a good, long run... and I've personally enjoyed being a part of it since the beginning.

There is a scare that wow will die even sooner amongst shareholders. I agree that activision will pump out as much money as possible with WoW, but I have a feeling they will be needing to push to something new in the close future. Last quarter, activision reported WoW losing over 1 million subscribers. Many were from asia (damn gold miners). Any way, this trends points to a trend that the game might be losing its luster sooner than we may suspect. Either way, if it dies sooner than most expect, then we might lose more than just a game, but an entire company (activision).

There is a scare that wow will die even sooner amongst shareholders. I agree that activision will pump out as much money as possible with WoW, but I have a feeling they will be needing to push to something new in the close future. Last quarter, activision reported WoW losing over 1 million subscribers. Many were from asia (damn gold miners). Any way, this trends points to a trend that the game might be losing its luster sooner than we may suspect. Either way, if it dies sooner than most expect, then we might lose more than just a game, but an entire company (activision).

I think the field has changed dramatically with the reset of Titan. We're talking about at least 2 expansions before Titan comes out, and probably into next decade before WoW really starts to feel a pinch from Titan.